


Neither Can I

by rhien (werebear)



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow & Related Fandoms
Genre: Carry On Countdown 2020 (Simon Snow), Carry On Countdown Day 2, F/F, Fangirl-era canon, Pegatha, Pining, background Simon/Baz, canon-typical levels of ill-advised lurking, currently one-sided or so it seems, unbetaed we rush in like Penny - stupidly brave?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:20:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28079826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/werebear/pseuds/rhien
Summary: Carry On Countdown 2020 -- Day 2 -- Distance“You’re wasting your time,” she tells him, and she knows her voice sounds weary. Shefeelsweary, down to her bones. One more thing, as if she needs just one more Merlinfucking thing to cope with.
Relationships: Penelope Bunce/Agatha Wellbelove
Comments: 10
Kudos: 13
Collections: Carry On Countdown 2020





	Neither Can I

> There was no way Snow would see him here, up on the balcony. Snow was too busy trying to learn his steps for the ball. Too busy stamping all over Agatha’s silk boots. She looked lovely today—all golden white hair and creamy pink skin. _That girl is opaque_ , Baz thought. _Like milk. Like white glass._
> 
> Simon took a bad step forward, and she lost her balance. He caught her with a strong arm around her waist.
> 
> _Don’t they just shine together? Weren’t they every shade of white and gold?_
> 
> “He’ll never give her up, you know.”
> 
> Baz wanted to whip around at the voice, but he caught himself. Didn’t even turn his head. “Hello, Penelope.”
> 
> “You’re wasting your time,” she said, and damned if she didn’t sound tired. “He thinks she’s his destiny—he can’t help himself.”
> 
> “I know,” Baz said, turning into the shadows. “Neither can I.”
> 
> —from “Tyrannus Basilton, Son of Pitch,” posted December 2009 by FanFixx.net authors Magicath and Wrenegade
> 
> (from _Fangirl,_ by Rainbow Rowell, ch. 18, p 217)

##

Sixth year has just begun, but it’s already dire enough, and Penelope just wants a little peace, a little dim light. Simon said he was going to practice the equinox dance with Agatha tonight, in the dining hall, and that seemed like a good opportunity for Penelope to take some time off. Go read something that’s _not_ research for a monster, or for homework. Call her mum, maybe, or do laundry, or work some with her calligraphy-spell project that always gets pushed aside for more urgent matters. No monster hunting, no mysterious blades and vampire counts with onion names like last year, no giant hares, no attacks.

Surely no attacks.

Dammit.

She tries to excuse it to herself, as she climbs the steps to the minstrels’ gallery balcony above the hall: it _is_ quiet up here. She’ll be able to hear the music, but not distract them. And no one will see her, which surely will be restful, too. It wasn’t like they were trying to avoid her—this is a practice session with Monsieur Jeté and everything. It's no big deal.

She isn’t much good at lying to herself.

She just wants to make sure everyone is safe. That _they’re_ safe. The afternoon before last—the sudden attack of a flock of snarks, behind the stables—she shouldn’t be so surprised at being surprised by things, after all this time. It wasn't that much closer of a call than usual; they've been through much worse, but well. She’s got to cope somehow.

Simon gets it. So does Agatha. They all have their odd little coping mechanisms: Simon likes to climb trees, or roll up in blankets like a curly-haired burrito. Agatha usually stays busy organizing social stuff for school, but she also makes collages. (She pastes them in a notebook, the cover of which she has labeled ‘LUDDITE PINTEREST.’ Penelope thinks it’s hysterically funny every time she sees it.)

Penelope just likes to know where everyone is, that’s all. And Simon is the worst about messaging to confirm that he got somewhere safely, and anyway, you never know. If there’s one thing they’ve learned over the years, it’s that things can leap out at you at any time, can’t they. And you can’t _help_ if you’re not there.

You just never know. They can’t afford distractions. And there’s always distractions.

For example.

Lately Agatha and Simon have been doing a lot more… could you call it flirting, exactly? Everyone else in the school seems to think they’re already dating. Penelope knows better. She thinks.

Maybe they’re just circling each other. Maybe it really is just a matter of time before they get together, like everyone (including the two of them? that’s the trouble, isn’t it) seems to assume.

But in general, people are stupid. Some people seem to expect her to be jealous, but that’s just heteronormative bullshit, isn’t it. Assuming that because she and Simon are best friends, and one of them is a boy and one a girl, _well then, naturally…_ Stupid. Sure, Penelope had a little bit of a crush on him for about five minutes back at the end of second year. But that was a long time ago; she just doesn’t feel that way about Simon.

She does have concerns though.

Penelope’s aware that it’s perfectly reasonable to want to date someone. She just doesn’t really think it’s a good idea, in their situation. She doesn’t want it to screw up their—their working relationship. What would they have done without Agatha, scrying for the blades last year, or reading the rune-stones for the selkies the year before? There’s even the way Agatha tends to listen skeptically and poke holes in their plans; it used to drive Penelope crazy, but now she rather relies on it to help expose the worst of the weaknesses in a plan, even if there’s still not much choice but to carry on with it anyway. What if Agatha and Simon break up, and then there’s recriminations, and avoidance, and choosing sides?? and _ugh._

And Penelope’s not _solely_ practical—what about their friendships? All of them, really—she and Agatha are really _friends_ now, too, ever since they were trapped together in that flooding well at the beginning of last year (and escaped on their own, thank you very much). And since Agatha took her to meet _her friends the dryads,_ which was _amazing_ ; Penelope had no idea Agatha spent that much time in the Wood.

(And now there’s the way Agatha will subtly nudge Penelope when Simon’s being particularly ridiculous; the way she’ll randomly bring mint Aeros (for Simon) or a Lion bar (for Penelope); the way she lights up when Penelope remembers to give her a weird vintage magazine to cut up for her notebook… how is Penelope supposed to give all that up?)

So yeah, Penelope worries that dating and romance and whatever is going to fuck things up. And Agatha and Simon seem to get along much better when they’re _not_ being awkward and flirty. But it’s not up to her, is it.

Regardless. She still wants to see that both of them are okay. Just from a distance.

When she gets up to the balcony, Penelope stops, because someone is already there.

A moment later she sees that it’s Basilton Pitch, and her ring hand clenches reflexively. Gods, now _she’s_ the one following him around, without even meaning to; possibly Simon has a point about the lurking. (Not that she can talk, exactly, right now.) She is under no circumstances going to encourage Simon’s paranoia about his roommate’s “plotting,” but… she’s also not going to just _leave_ without stopping to see what he’s doing up here, alone in the dark.

 _(Something nefarious,_ Simon would say.)

But he’s just standing there, wand nowhere in sight, just watching, or so it appears.

Simon is right, Penelope begrudgingly admits to herself. Basil looks awful lately. Now, in the light thrown up from the hall below, he’s even paler than usual, and drawn, pointy-featured almost to the point of alienness. The circles under his eyes are so dark they look like Simon blacked his eye again, though Penelope is pretty sure the two of them haven’t been fist-fighting this week.

She shifts cautiously so she can see a little more clearly, and—oh.

Oh.

Basil is staring down at Simon and Agatha, and his face is a natural disaster of emotion—a flood visibly eating away at his normally impeccable sneer of composure. Desire, and wistfulness, and misery.

It’s so naked, she feels guilty even looking at him. It’s so raw, it makes her chest ache, and she doesn’t even _like_ the git.

It’s not that she’s not ready to curse Basil right off the balcony if he takes a wrong step towards Simon. Towards either of them. (She feels a terrible clawing in her gut. It’s strange, goggle-eyed and green, and she tries to tell herself it’s just protectiveness. It is. Mostly?) But that look on his face… she’s off-kilter, confused.

She’s never thought that Basil really liked Agatha much; she’s always assumed that he just flirts with her as another way to needle at Simon. (And the very idea, even now, makes her furious—on Simon’s behalf too, but especially for Agatha: she’s not just some tool, not just some prize, not just a glamoured, beautiful face—fucking _patriarchy,_ she wants to _scream_.) Honestly, she wasn’t sure that Tyrannus Basilton Pitch III was _capable_ of truly caring about anyone other than himself. Maybe he’s just a snobbish, entitled arsehole. Or maybe Simon’s right, and he really is a vampire, and maybe vampires don’t have proper human emotions, or hearts…

But this one does. She can see it all over his face.

He leans against the railing on his elbows, shoulders drawing in, and drops his head, and the lines of misery in his whole body make her throat catch.

Below them, Agatha yelps briefly; Simon just trod on her foot again. The dancing master calls him over and he crosses to the left side of the room, where Monsieur Jeté tries to show him something, presumably how to do the steps in a way that won’t twist the equinox spell wrong, _or_ lame his partner. Let no one say that Watford teachers don’t do their best in the face of impossible odds.

Basil looks up, and his face does that thing again—twists with longing so intense that she can taste it. She can see his throat move, swallowing.

But he isn’t looking at Agatha.

Agatha is standing in the middle of the room, waiting, and Simon is over by the wall with Monsieur Jeté, who’s trying to show him a reverse fleckerl or something, and…

Basil isn’t looking at Agatha.

He’s looking at Simon.

Penelope blinks. Is that really… is it?

His face is collapsing into hopeless yearning, and he’s looking at _Simon_ and…

In that moment, she feels three things. The first is a nagging should-have-known, throw-away-question-on-the-exam feeling, oddly coupled with relief.

The second, as her eyes flick over, inexorably, is utter disbelief that anyone could look at Simon when Agatha is standing right there, swaying a little, practically shining in the center of the long wooden floorboards of the hall, with her golden white hair, the elegant line of her neck as she sighs and stretches her head to one side…

Penelope stops. Stunned. Blinks.

And the third is a deep, unwilling sense of kinship so strong she can hardly breathe through it.

Distantly she thinks: _it fucking figures._

Below, Simon has rejoined Agatha and they’re dancing again. His steps are as bad as ever, but he catches her waist as she stumbles, and she shakes her head and laughs, because Agatha always loves to dance.

Here on the balcony, Baz is standing, drawing himself up, his back straighter and turned more toward Penelope than it was before. He rubs his hand over his face, and she can practically feel the effort he’s making to steady himself. Because she’s making it too, in the wake of this—

She _doesn’t have time_ to think about these things. She’s never really had much time, or much inclination, for thoughts about attraction, romance, relationships, let alone for feelings about them.

But now, when she looks at Agatha…

Feelings are inconvenient, and distracting, as a rule.

And their lives don’t allow for distractions.

She doesn’t have time for sympathy with Simon’s sworn enemy _(we haven’t sworn anything!_ she can hear Simon insisting in her head), and she doesn’t have time to be blindsided by… this.

Below, Simon manages to successfully turn Agatha, underarm, at last. She’s laughing, her skirt floating out, hair twirling smoothly around her in that impossible way that Penelope happens to know is a particularly tricky spell, but that looks perfect, effortless, untouchable. The way Agatha always looks.

Except Penelope knows better. She’s seen Agatha in the middle of the night, stumbling out of the room next door, pulling on a silk robe, when all the smoke alarms on their floor were shrieking about firewyrms (false alarm; it was just Darva, burning toast again). She’s seen her at dawn after an all-night patrol, dark circles under her eyes, snapping with irritated exhaustion. She’s seen her face scraped and filthy while they ran from the bandersnatch, seen her glamours fall away in the presence of the Humdrum’s sand-beasts, seen her red-faced and screaming rage at that charm-twisting witch in fourth year, the one who’d kidnapped Elspeth, and Lucinda’s cat.

Penelope’s seen all of that, and _that’s_ the version of Agatha she likes best, that’s the version she most wants to— She shakes her head, vehemently.

Distractions.

Case in point: here’s Basil, still staring, so distracted that he obviously hasn’t heard her even after… five minutes? Ten? Whatever. She could’ve cursed him ten times over by now. She’d best say something before he tries to leave, or before he starts to crumble again.

“He’ll never give her up, you know,” Penelope says aloud.

She can see a tiny start, a tensing, but otherwise he doesn’t move. Very impressive. “Hello, Penelope.”

“You’re wasting your time,” she tells him, and she knows her voice sounds weary. She _feels_ weary, down to her bones. One more thing, as if she needs just one more Merlinfucking thing to cope with.

She continues, aloud, because she needs to hear it as much as he does. For all the good it’ll do. “He thinks she’s his destiny—he can’t help himself.”

There’s a long pause, while Basil stands very still, and Penelope stares over his shoulder, at her two best friends dancing.

“I know,” Basil says at last, turning away from her, sliding into the shadows and around, past. “Neither can I.”

She closes her eyes, doesn’t watch him leave. _I can,_ she tells herself, fiercely, desperately, and doesn’t let herself look down at them again. _I will. I have to._

**Author's Note:**

> This is really part of a longer Fangirl-era Pegatha story, but here is the ficlet version for COC 2020.


End file.
